


Balm

by RainyJane



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, WandaVision (TV)
Genre: Angst, Comfort Sex, F/M, Major Character Undeath, Pre-WandaVision
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-19
Updated: 2021-02-19
Packaged: 2021-03-15 02:15:21
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29306349
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RainyJane/pseuds/RainyJane
Summary: Wanda visits Vision's grave only to discover someone has stolen his body. Finding it is only the beginning.
Relationships: Wanda Maximoff/Vision
Comments: 6
Kudos: 59





	Balm

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Darthelwig](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Darthelwig/gifts).



This was a nice cemetery, she supposed. If there was such a thing.

Natasha's cenotaph stood near the front gate. The memorial service had been tearful, with so many people sharing stories and memories of Nat, talking about what an enourmous impact she had on the world, and how many lives she'd saved.

Wanda had said a few words, but kept it short, knowing she wouldn't be able to hold it together.

She didn't just feel sad about Nat's death; she felt abandoned.

Afterward, Wanda stayed at the cemetery as everyone else gradually left.

Only days ago, to her, she'd watched Vision die, twice. He'd been buried here for five years.

Since the adrenaline of the battle against Thanos wore off, every breath Wanda took felt like she had to force her lungs to expand and contract. Every step took a conscious force of will.

After losing Pietro, visiting his grave had helped her. Having a place to feel close to him, to talk to him, and to cry fresh tears had been cathartic, allowing her to function when she'd gone back to her duties. Maybe visiting Vision's grave would do the same.

Not that she knew what her duties were, now. The world had changed so much. She was no longer a wanted fugitive, but she didn't know what she was supposed to do now. Natasha was dead, Tony was dead, the Avengers might not even be a thing anymore. What did she have left?

She made her way toward the scupture of Vision that marked his grave. She thought she saw something moving between the trees from the corner of her eye, but when she stopped to look there was nothing there, and she couldn't sense the presence of any human mind around.

That was weird; she'd never been afraid of cemeteries before.

She knelt by Vision's grave and reached out to touch it. She wanted to say something to him, to tell him that they'd defeated Thanos, to apologize for not visiting his grave before, for not being at his funeral, and to tell him how much she loved him, but she couldn't find the words. She sank to the grass. She gasped, realizing she had literally not drawn a breath since she'd gotten to the grave.

The tears still didn't come. The entire weight of the Earth seemed to shift to envelop her, pressing her down. She couldn't move. She couldn't even think.

Minutes later, when a thought did come into her head, it was a realization of the unfairness that she'd outlived him. This cosmic being in a perfect vibranium body should have outlived her by centuries. Instead, he'd had only a few years of life.

Nothing in the world was fair.

She didn't know what she would do with the rest of her life, but she accepted as fact that she would never be happy again.

The cloudy sky was getting darker. The sun must have set. Night was coming.

Her hand pressed to the ground. It felt so empty. If she could feel that Vision's body was really here, maybe then she could weep. Maybe then she could get this grief out of her body and could move on enough to leave.

She channelled power to her fingers and sent it into the ground. She sensed the concrete around the grave marker, the texture of the dirt, little rocks scattered throughout it, and the solid wood lid of the coffin.

She hesitated. This seemed almost ghoulish, her impulse to see Vision's body, to feel its emptiness again.

But after everything that had happened, after the sheer surrealness of the Dusting, of coming back, and of fighting Thanos, she figured if she didn't, she wouldn't be able to believe he was really gone.

She sent the threads of her power into the coffin...

And found nothing.

It was empty.

It took her a few seconds to understand. She tried again, wondering if she was wrong. Then she ripped up the ground above the coffin. It came up in a mass of grass, roots, and dirt pulsating with red flashes. She dropped it to the side, then used her power to lift the lid off the coffin. It should have been nailed down, but it wasn't.

Her eyes confirmed what her power had sensed: Vision's body was gone.

This cemetery, the final resting place of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents and Avengers who died in the line of duty, was surrounded by concrete walls topped with razor wire, and had a 24-hour guard. Wanda stormed into the guardhouse.

The guard on duty, a 30-something scarecrow of a man, had been looking at his phone when she came in. He jumped out of his chair, eyes wide.

"Where is he?" Wanda demanded.

"Where is who?"

"Vision. He's not here. His coffin is empty!"

"That's impossible," he said.

Nothing in his face or voice indicated a lie, but the flash of fear she read in his mind did.

"How long have you worked here?" she asked him.

"I don't remember."

That was unlikely.

Wanda hadn't used her power to delve into someone's mind since she'd worked for Ultron. It was forbidden, both by the Avengers' rules and the Sokovia Accords, but she decided to make an exception. With a flick of her fingers, her power connected her mind to his.

She saw it.

A dark, quiet night. People in dark uniforms using modified Chitauri technology to quickly and silently dig up the grave. They opened the coffin, transferred Vision's body onto a hovering stretcher, replaced the coffin lid and the dirt, carefully replacing the top layer of grass to appear undisturbed, and took the body away.

"Where did you take him?" Wanda demanded, her voice shaking.

He shook his head, trying to resist her.

But he wasn't strong enough. She saw it in his mind: the top-secret research facility. He knew where it was, so she knew where it was.

"Sleep."

At her command, the guard slumped to the floor, unconscious.

* * *

The sound changed, a rising and falling wail.

The technicians paused, acknowledging the sound, but then returned to their work.

They stopped when the door flew open. They froze.

A woman entered the room. She wasn't wearing the gear that everyone else who entered had to wear.

She walked slowly. The others stayed still, not even turning to look at her, as if they were frozen.

"What did you do to him?"

Though her words were barely above a whisper, they sounded angry. Was she talking to him? She was looking at him. But he didn't know what she meant. What had he done to whom?

He, of course, didn't answer, or make any indication he could hear.

She moved her hands in a peculiar way, and something red glowed around her fingers. A matching light surrounded the wires connected to him. They started moving, seemingly of their own accord, breaking themselves away from him.

Then the red light surrounded him, entering him. It lifted the parts of his body from the various tables where they lay. He wasn't afraid. Something about this experience felt familiar, even comforting.

The red light carried him after the woman as she left the room. They went down a gray corridor, then though a brightly lit lobby. Everyone they passed was unusually still, blank looks on their faces.

They left through the front door.

Outside was a blue sky, a parking lot with several vehicles, a gate bent back at its hinges, and a high perimeter fence, beyond which were trees.

These were all things that seemed familiar, though he had no memory of having seen them before.

The woman waved her free hand. A door opened on a nearby SUV. The red light carried him inside and gently set him on the back seat.

* * *

Wanda drove the stolen car as fast as she could. She didn't have a destination, and she took random offramps, trying to make her route hard to guess for anyone tracking her.

She wasn't sure who this group was. She suspected they were connected with S.H.I.E.L.D., but they'd stolen Vision's body to dissect and experiment on, and that told her all she needed to know about them.

When the SUV ran low on gas, she abandoned it off a side road, levitating Vision's disassembled body as she made her way through dense woods. After about an hour, she stopped to rest in a clearing.

This had probably been a terrible idea. She was a fugitive again. But what else could she have done? Some secret organization turning Vision's body into a weapon was the last thing he would have wanted.

She should bury him herself, in a secret place only she would know.

But she didn't want to bury him in pieces.

She spread the pieces of Vision's body out on the ground and looked them over.

They had repaired the damage to his forehead. There was an opaque crystal in place of the Mind Stone. Maybe it was some kind of power source, like a miniaturized version of Tony's arc reactor.

She began the work of stitching his body back together, using her power to connect the pieces, fusing vibranium joints, coiling wires back into place. Having such intricate work to focus on calmed her mind, made her feel useful.

It took a long time.

It was mid afternoon by the time she couldn't find any more disconnected circuits to repair. She looked back at his face.

Was that...?

She almost felt like she could read him, like she had as she watched him being formed in the Cradle under Ultron's supervision, tiny quickenings in his mind.

But that was impossible. He was dead. Gone. Empty.

And yet...

"Vis, are you in there?"

There was no response.

Of course there wasn't. That had just been a figment of her imagination, her mind playing tricks on her again.

The momentary flicker of hope broke her. She slumped over him, her head on his chest, and sobbed.

She was exhausted from her trek through the forest, from using so much power to break into the S.W.O.R.D. facility, carry Vision's body, and put him back together, and from the fact she hadn't slept in over 24 hours.

She cried herself to sleep.

* * *

He wasn't sure what to make of any of this.

A woman he had no memory of seeing before but who seemed achingly familiar had liberated him from the only place he could remember being, had transported him far away, and had used some kind of power he didn't understand to put him together.

And then, for a moment, it had seemed like she could see through his act of being inanimate.

_Vis, are you in there?_

He'd decided not to answer. He didn't know who she was, who she worked for, or what her intentions were. It was safer to stay silent, to pretend he wasn't there.

He'd wondered if that had been the right choice when she began to weep. He was tempted to say something to comfort her, but he didn't want to startle her. And very, very soon her sobs abruptly stopped. It took a few minutes of listening to her breathing to realize she was asleep, using him as a pillow. He could feel the weight of her head, her hair slightly tickling his skin as it moved with her breaths. He could feel his limbs, his fingers and toes. He felt himself grow stronger as the sunlight beamed down on his face.

He could have left, he realized. He probably could have extricated himself without even waking the woman. But he didn't choose to move.

* * *

Wanda awoke a few hours later, stiff and thirsty but somewhat refreshed. She opened her eyes, then jolted upright. Vision's color had returned: the purplish-gray of his corpse had been replaced by the vivid cranberry red he'd been in life. Her fingers danced over him, trying to find the source of the change.

The object in his head where the Mind Stone used to be was absorbing solar energy, she determined. The energy was spreading through his body. It was an automatic process, not an indication of life.

She levitated him and continued on. As the sun set, she could make out the lights of a nearby town through the trees. She headed toward them, hoping she could steal another car and put more distance between herself and S.W.O.R.D. headquarters.

Just outside the town, shielded by roadside trees, she set Vision down and stopped to rest. The rational thing to do would be leave him there and come back for him once she'd procured a car. But she couldn't bear the thought of leaving him. Maybe she could cause him to phase, make him look human, which would make it easier to move through the town with him.

She reached out toward his forehead.

And felt a rush of fear.

She gasped.

There had been no change in the expression on his face, but that was not her imagination: that fear had been his.

There was something in there.

"I'm not going to hurt you," she assured him. "I'm going to disguise you. I know you don't recognize me, but please trust me."

She tried again, slowly moving her hand to his forehead, then directing her power into his body, phasing his skin into nondescript clothes, a human face, and blond hair. It took her a few minutes of adjusting it to get it right. She levitated Vision up and set him on his feet.

Very slowly, his face lowered and his hands lifted as he examined himself.

"Can you walk?" Wanda asked.

He complied.

Wanda stole an old car—one not likely to have any kind of GPS system—using her power to unlock the doors and start the ignition.

She drove for a couple of hours in a meandering route, only stopping to get a hamburger and water at a drive-through, as she hadn't eaten since yesterday.

Vision sat in the passenger seat. He didn't speak or move. Wanda had asked him a few questions about what he remembered, but soon gave up. His lack of response was too painful.

Around midnight she parked the car on the side of a road near a river. She flew herself and Vision to the other side of the river, and walked to a nearby town. She found a hotel—a decidedly no-frills place with the ironically classy name of Willowbranch Inn. She made the receptionist forget he'd seen them right after handing over the keycards.

Vision sat motionless on one bed. Wanda sat on the other. She couldn't think what to do. Was Vision dead or alive? How conscious was he? Did he understand her? How much was he aware of? She couldn't bury him now, but what should she do with him? Where could they go? Who could help them? If the organization that had him was connected with S.H.I.E.L.D., it might not be a good idea to tell Clint or Sam that Vision was alive but apparently without a will of his own, vulnerable to exploitation. Even if Sam and Clint would never purposely betray Vision, they might be monitored, and defying S.H.I.E.L.D. would put them at serious risk. Maybe the Wakandans could help, but she didn't know how to contact T'Challa or Shuri without anyone else finding out, and she had no way to get to Wakanda.

Feeling defeated, she buried her face in her hands.

"Are you alright?"

She jumped at Vision's voice. She turned toward him. He was sitting on his bed still, but he'd phased back to his natural state and turned to watch her.

The answer, of course, was no. But that wasn't the important thing.

"You're...you're talking?"

Vision had chosen to remain silent even after she'd realized he was conscious, trying to determine what her intentions were. But seeing her like this had been too much. His heart ached for her. As far as he could tell, her efforts throughout the day had no other aim than to get him away from his captors. Also, he was increasingly convinced that he knew her somehow.

"My instincts are telling me to trust you," he answered carefully.

"But you don't know who I am?"

He tilted his head, not sure how to answer that question. "I have no memory of you, but I know you. You are Wanda Maximoff. I am Vision. I know that as I know this is called a bed, and we are in a hotel. But I don't know how I know these things."

"What do you remember?" Wanda asked.

"My only memories are of being in the room where you found me," he said.

Being prodded, probed, electrified, endlessly scanned, disassembled and reassembled again and again.

The voices, often talking about him but never _to_ him.

_This is the most sophisticated technology Earth has produced._

_If we can find a way to copy the A.I. protocols, we could create an army._

_What if we can replace its neural network with a remote operating system?_

"They were studying me, experimenting on me. They wanted to turn me into a weapon," Vision said. "I didn't cooperate. I didn't let on that they had succeeded in activating my mind. They couldn't understand why it didn't seem to be working."

"You didn't try to escape?"

"I didn't know there was anywhere to escape to."

Wanda stood from her bed and moved closer to him, staring at his face. "So you didn't move or speak the entire time you were there?"

"Precisely. As far as I can remember, you are the first person I have ever spoken to."

"How far back can you remember?"

"Two hundred and eighty-six days."

A tear rolled down her cheek. "You must have felt so alone."

He had. There had been so much loneliness, pain, doubt, and longing to make himself known to his tormentors just to have some kind of human connection, but fear of what they would do with him if he did.

He nodded silently, but Wanda could read the suffering he'd endured. He was traumatized.

"But even though you couldn't remember your life before, you knew you didn't want to let them use you," she said, amazed at him.

"Yes. I didn't trust them, but I didn't understand why. My life before...We knew each other then, didn't we?"

"Yes. We worked together. We were friends."

He stared at her. "Were we more than that?" Just as his instincts told him to trust her, they were telling him to reach out and wipe away the tear. His instincts told him to touch her, to hold her. Just as he knew her name was Wanda Maximoff, he knew how her skin would feel beneath his fingers, how it would feel to kiss her, to have her legs wrapped around him. "Were we lovers?"

Wanda was stunned, not just from his words, but the way he was looking at her, his eyes questioning, confused, and yet hopeful. All she could say—and she could only say it in a breathy whisper—was, "Yes."

"And that is why you saved me?"

"I'm not sure if I have saved you," she admitted. "We're not _safe._ They'll be looking for us. I have no idea where we can go, or who we can trust. There are a few people I think we can trust, but if we go to them we'd put them in danger. I don't know what to do."

"You have saved me." He dared reach for her, setting his hands on her shoulders. "You freed me. That's enough. Whatever we face next, we will face together."

She nodded numbly. The only thing that really mattered to her now was protecting _him_ , no matter what it meant for her. Not only protect him, but do what she could to help him heal. She wished she could undo the suffering they'd inflicted on him, that she could stitch his mind back together like she had his body.

"Are you okay?" she asked. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

Vision hesitated. "Could you..." He stopped himself, not sure he had the right to ask for what he was longing for.

"Anything," she said insistently.

"Could you touch me?"

She reached for him, hands shaking. She placed her hands on his cheeks. "Like this?"

His eyes drifted closed. He nodded. "I've wanted this. To know what it feels to experience human touch. _Your_ touch. I think I missed it."

She ran her hands over his face. She needed this as much as he did, to touch him and see him, to convince herself this was real, that he was really alive.

The tips of her fingers explored the contours of the vibranium plates along his head, the angles of his cheekbones, jawline, and brows. She ran one finger down his nose, then over his lips. Vision's lips tingled at her touch.

Her fingers moved down his chin and the tender skin of his neck. She spread her hands out over his chest.

"Is this alright?"

"Yes." As her hands caressed gentle circles over his body, it was like she was soothing away the horrors of what he had been through. Not completely, but the comfort of her touch took the edge off the memories of his isolation, fear, and pain.

She ran her hands down his biceps. She brushed her fingers along the inside of his forearm, so lightly that it tickled. She trailed the same touch over his wrist and the palm of his hand, then interlaced her fingers with his.

"I thought you were dead," she admitted. She wasn't sure why she'd said that at this moment. She hadn't meant to. She didn't want to talk about it. She didn't want to tell Vision what happened. She didn't even want to think about it.

To her immense relief, he didn't ask. He leaned forward and kissed her.

She melted into it.

Her free hand returned to his chest, fingers tracing over his muscles. As their kisses intensified, her hand slid lower, down his ribs to his abs.

She wanted him so much. But did he really want her back?

She forced herself to stop. She drew away. He looked at her with longing and confusion.

"I need a shower," she said. It had been a very long, strenuous day. She could feel dirt and dried sweat from her hike through the woods clinging to her.

"Ah. Of course."

When Wanda reached the door to the bathroom, she looked back at him. "You can join me if you want." She lingered in the doorway for a second before entering the bathroom. She hoped he would accept her offer, not just because of how badly she wanted him, but because the idea of not being in the same room as him made her sick with worry.

She left her clothes in a pile on the floor, unwrapped a bar of complimentary soap, and stepped into the bathtub, letting the water run for a few seconds to heat up before moving under it.

Vision phased through the shower curtain.

The sight of her, with water running over her bare skin, took his breath away. The smile she gave him was more beautiful still.

He phased away his clothes and moved behind her. He took the soap from her, rubbed it in his hands to work up a lather, and began washing her back.

"Mm," she moaned at the feeling, the simultaneous lustration and massage his hands were giving her. "Thank you."

"I feel as if I should be thanking you for this," he said.

He washed her arms, her shoulders, and her neck. Every inch of her struck him as familiar, and unaccountably beautiful. He moved in front of her and ran his hands over her face. She closed her eyes, lifting her face to the water and to him, and he couldn't help but kiss her. He kissed her as his hands continued their ministrations, washing her stomach, her sides, and then her breasts.

Her hands slid over his wet skin, feeling the hard curves of his muscles and vibranium plates. One hand drifted around his hip, then wrapped around his shaft. She stroked him leisurely, amazed anew at how smooth and hard he was.

Vision lost himself in the sensation of her hand on him until he was on the brink of coming, then he drew back, taking her hand in his.

"I'm not finished," he said huskily.

He knelt down in front of her and slowly washed her legs, running his hands from her hips to her feet and back many more times than necessary. And then, when he couldn't resist for a moment longer, he rested his hands on her thighs and thrust his tongue between her legs.

She moaned. Her hand cupped the back of his head, urging him to continue, which he did gladly, licking and gently sucking at her clit in a way he somehow knew she loved.

Her knees gave out when she came. She had to grasp him to keep from falling over.

He rose and held her, the water washing over both of them.

She let him wash her hair. He loved the texture of it between his fingers. After he turned off the water, he continued running his fingers through her hair, working out tangles and smoothing it. They were no longer dripping by the time they stepped out of the tub.

"You must be exhausted," he said to her as she wrapped a towel around herself. It was so late it was almost early.

"I am, but I'm also...sort of wired. I don't think I could sleep yet." She turned to him and took his hands. "And I'm not finished with you."

She took him to his bed and sat him down on it. She let the towel fall away as she straddled him.

For a minute they just kissed. Vision's hands on her back held her against him. 

Wanda gently pushed him down to lie on the bed, then ran her hands down his arms and interlaced her fingers with his. They gazed at each other for a long moment before Wanda shifted over him.

He slid inside her easily; she was so wet. Vision's eyes closed involuntarily as he lost himself in the sensation of being inside her.

Using his hands for leverage, Wanda began bobbing over him, reveling in the feeling of his girth filling her. Her breaths came faster and faster, and her movements sped up to match.

Vision's orgasm caught him unexpectedly, crashing over him like a wave. His head fell back onto the bed.

Wanda rolled off of him and lay down next to him, adoration in her eyes.

He turned to kiss her. One hand followed the curve of her waist and stomach. He ran his fingers through her pubic hair, toying with the curls there for a minute before sliding his hand between her legs. He could feel the vibration of her approving moan on his lips. His hand rubbed in and out between her labia. He found her clit with the tip of his index finger. Knowing she would be sensitive, he stroked it in gentle circles.

Wanda came almost instantly. She broke off from kissing him, her head falling back into the bed as her body arched up to press harder into Vision's hand.

She collapsed back, blissfully exhausted. For the moment, all her fear and pain were forgotten. She couldn't think or feel anything besides love for Vision and the pleasure of their lovemaking.

He pulled the blankets from under them to over them. He rested his arms around her, amazed that only yesterday he'd been trapped in a research facility, having forgotten that Wanda existed, and now he had her in his arms again.

Just as Wanda was about to drift to sleep, the TV turned on by itself.

There was a commercial on. An ordinary-looking couple in an old car drove into a quaint little town as a soft, soothing voice narrated.

_"Do you just want to get away from it all? Come lose yourself in the safe, quiet community of Westview, New Jersey. Here you'll find comfort, security, and peace of mind. Enjoy Westview's rolling farms, historic architecture, and access to wilderness recreation and relaxation. Vacation homes are available to rent year-round. Come to Westview, where anything you wish for can become reality."_

"That was odd," Vision said. "Did you turn on the television?"

"No. There must be a short in it." Wanda used her power to turn the TV off, and snuggled closer to Vision.

Something about the ad for Westview caught her attention. The town in the commercial did look like it would be a nice place to lay low for a while, while she figured things out.

They would check it out tomorrow, she decided.

She couldn't have known that commercial had been designed for her, seeded with cues specifically chosen to appeal to her subconscious. She couldn't have known that tomorrow she and Vision would drive a car she would steal from a scrap yard—using her power to repair and propel—straight into a trap designed for her, a place where all her wishes, in particular, would become reality, where she and Vision would be robbed of their memories and offered a seemingly perfect life. And where, most insidiously, she would forget that Vision being alive had nothing to do with her.

But that would be tomorrow. Tonight she fell asleep in Vision's arms, marveling at the fact that he loved her, that they were together, and most of all that he was alive. She would do anything to make sure he stayed that way.


End file.
